5.  The applicant’s family lived in the village of Ąžuolpamušio, Pasvalys district. Her husband died on 15 April 2002.
6.  Prior to his death, on 31 January 2001 the biggest Lithuanian daily newspaper, Lietuvos Rytas, published a front page article entitled “Pasvalys villages paralysed by the fear of death: residents of the remote Lithuanian area shackled by the AIDS threat” (Pasvalio kaimus paralyžavo mirties baimė: nuošalios Lietuvos vietovės gyventojai atsidūrė AIDS grėsmės gniaužtuose). The following statements of particular concern to the applicant’s family were made in the article:
“Notoriously promiscuous, thirty-year old Gitana Biriuk is already sick with this fatal disease ...
An HIV-positive person lives in a village in the Pajiešmenys area. This [is] G. Biriuk, an unmarried mother of two children ...
The father of G. Biriuk’s two children is an inhabitant of Paiešmenių [village] - L. Armonas...
Medics at the Pasvalys hospital confirmed that G. Biriuk is HIV-positive. The woman was taken to hospital with tuberculosis. Blood tests revealed that she was HIV-positive ...
The woman [G. Biriuk] has already been diagnosed with AIDS - this is the last stage of the infection. The disease can last from a year up to ten years but finally ends with death...
Laimis Armonas is HIV-positive...
Last week ... the father of G. Biriuk’s two children, living in Pajiešmenių village, was taken to Pasvalys hospital with a high fever...
7.  The husband instituted proceedings in the Vilnius City Third District Court, suing the newspaper for non-pecuniary damages in the amount of 50,000 Lithuanian litai (LTL, or about 14,460 euro (EUR)) for a breach of his right to privacy.
8.  On 19 July 2001 the court ruled in his favour. The court found that the defendant had not proved the truthfulness of the published allegations as to the husband’s relationship with G. Biriuk, or that the information about the husband’s state of health, indicating his full name and residence, had been made public with his consent, or met a legitimate public interest in drawing society’s attention to the rising number of HIV cases in Lithuania. Having assessed all the relevant evidence, the court decided that there was no proof that the husband was the father of G. Biriuk’s children. The article humiliated the husband and the publication of information about his private life caused him non-pecuniary damage, had an impact on his health, and a negative influence on his family life and his reputation. It also restricted his family’s opportunities to communicate with others. The court noted that in 2001 the statutory capital of the newspaper company - JSC Lietuvos Rytas - was LTL 33,754,700 (approximately EUR 9,776,037). However, the court concluded that the information had not been made public deliberately, and applied Article 54 § 1 of the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public. Accordingly, it awarded the husband the maximum sum set by this Law in such circumstances, i.e. LTL 10,000 (about EUR 2,896), in compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
9.  The husband appealed to the Vilnius Regional Court. On 8 October 2001 the court dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the lower court’s reasoning.
10.  As mentioned above, the husband died on 15 April 2002.
11.  On 24 April 2002 the Supreme Court upheld the appellate court’s decision. It stated that an award exceeding the amount of LTL 10,000 set by the aforementioned legislation could be granted if it were established that information had been published intentionally. The court observed that by printing the article the newspaper had committed two violations: first, it had published information which was not true and which debased the husband’s honour and reputation, and, secondly, it had published data about his private life without his consent. However the Supreme Court ruled that the lower courts had come to the well-founded conclusion that the husband had not proved that the defendant had published information about him deliberately and, therefore, there was no ground to increase the amount of compensation for non-pecuniary damage fivefold, as envisaged by Article 54 § 1 of the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public.